According to Shakespeare, in the case of Capulet v Montague both young lovers lost their lives, in separate incidents each later ruled as suicides. But what really killed them both was the fact that each of their extended families upheld longstanding traditions of disapproving of each other.
And so it is today. In what passes as 'family law' in the courts, the entire undertaking is firmly anchored in the almost meaningless definition of a 'family' as one set of parents and their children. Playing one parent's 'rights' against the other's in an attempt to arrive at a ruling in law is purely theatrical, while behind the scenes the real contest is between two extended families, and determined by which one has the more ample resources to enforce their disapproval of the other and make it stick.
Especially in the case of younger parents, but not by any means limited to them, it is generally not the contesting parent who is financing a crusade to destroy the other parent's credibility regarding their fitness to raise a child, it is the grandparents, or whatever estate or venture or even criminal organization finances them. Which side prevails is a matter of which has the greater resources to invest. The law itself is just a means to that end, not in the hands of judges, but of private attorneys acting as indifferent mercenaries. Backroom deals are what lawyers do all day, and the more powerful one always wins before anything is ever brought before the bench.
For every measure there is a countermeasure. Pass all the 'shared custody' laws you like, but in the finest American tradition of liberty and justice for all who can afford it, you may then sit back and watch as, case by case, the wealthier or more influential or better-connected extended family deploys whatever workarounds they can afford, to destroy the other.
I once had a 'joint custody' ruling in hand, signed in each other's presence by both our daughter's parents. It turned out to be not worth the paper it was printed on. The mother in the case had the connections to bribe my own attorney to tamper with the language in the document when I sought to have a second state take over both jurisdiction and enforcement, and I simply didn't catch it. (Because I trusted my lawyer to act in good faith toward my case.) Until she took our child out of the second state and back to the first, and I was soon afterward almost laughed out of a new attorney's office when she pointed out to me the very subtle but imminently binding little stunt my former lawyer had pulled with the phrasing of a single sentence.
The mother comes from a long line, a very large extended family, of money-launderers and petty influence-peddlers who regard it as everyday procedure to exert their will by means of connections and bribes and threats, and knowing people who know people. My own people not only have no concept of such behavior but refuse, with prejudice, to accept the fact that this is how the world really works, and so I and my parents (stupidly) assumed that all parties official and otherwise were acting in good faith.
When is anything EVER settled in a law case by both parties acting in good faith? Why should anyone assume that 'rebuttable presumption' is anything but just another obstacle presented to the deployment of every bad-faith tactic available, to the one party that knows how and has the resources?
According to Shakespeare, in the case of Capulet v Montague both young lovers lost their lives, in separate incidents each later ruled as suicides. But what really killed them both was the fact that each of their extended families upheld longstanding traditions of disapproving of each other.
And so it is today. In what passes as 'family law' in the courts, the entire undertaking is firmly anchored in the almost meaningless definition of a 'family' as one set of parents and their children. Playing one parent's 'rights' against the other's in an attempt to arrive at a ruling in law is purely theatrical, while behind the scenes the real contest is between two extended families, and determined by which one has the more ample resources to enforce their disapproval of the other and make it stick.
Especially in the case of younger parents, but not by any means limited to them, it is generally not the contesting parent who is financing a crusade to destroy the other parent's credibility regarding their fitness to raise a child, it is the grandparents, or whatever estate or venture or even criminal organization finances them. Which side prevails is a matter of which has the greater resources to invest. The law itself is just a means to that end, not in the hands of judges, but of private attorneys acting as indifferent mercenaries. Backroom deals are what lawyers do all day, and the more powerful one always wins before anything is ever brought before the bench.
For every measure there is a countermeasure. Pass all the 'shared custody' laws you like, but in the finest American tradition of liberty and justice for all who can afford it, you may then sit back and watch as, case by case, the wealthier or more influential or better-connected extended family deploys whatever workarounds they can afford, to destroy the other.
I once had a 'joint custody' ruling in hand, signed in each other's presence by both our daughter's parents. It turned out to be not worth the paper it was printed on. The mother in the case had the connections to bribe my own attorney to tamper with the language in the document when I sought to have a second state take over both jurisdiction and enforcement, and I simply didn't catch it. (Because I trusted my lawyer to act in good faith toward my case.) Until she took our child out of the second state and back to the first, and I was soon afterward almost laughed out of a new attorney's office when she pointed out to me the very subtle but imminently binding little stunt my former lawyer had pulled with the phrasing of a single sentence.
The mother comes from a long line, a very large extended family, of money-launderers and petty influence-peddlers who regard it as everyday procedure to exert their will by means of connections and bribes and threats, and knowing people who know people. My own people not only have no concept of such behavior but refuse, with prejudice, to accept the fact that this is how the world really works, and so I and my parents (stupidly) assumed that all parties official and otherwise were acting in good faith.
When is anything EVER settled in a law case by both parties acting in good faith? Why should anyone assume that 'rebuttable presumption' is anything but just another obstacle presented to the deployment of every bad-faith tactic available, to the one party that knows how and has the resources?